Yahoo pulled plug on Bengaluru R&D, but Verizon's keen on it

Up until 2011, India was central to Yahoo. And its Bengaluru R&D centre was key to many of its products. And then it all collapsed.The merger with Verizon will likely increase the profile of India for the joint entity.Sujit John&Shilpa Phadnis | TNN | July 26, 2016, 10:22 IST

Up until 2011, India was central to Yahoo. It was to be a major market. And its Bengaluru R&D centre was key to many of its products.

And then it all collapsed. Yahoo all but gave up on India as a market. And it moved all of its R&D to the US. Today, its centre in Bengaluru is down to about 400 people, from a peak of 2,500, when it accounted for a little less than a fifth of the global workforce.

Those that remain are involved primarily in support work, ensuring that the Yahoo sites are up and running, and keeping the ad technology platform going. There are a few sales and editorial staff across Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

But the merger with Verizon will likely now increase the profile of India for the joint entity. Verizon, one of the largest wireless and cable companies in the world, already has a centre in Chennai, with 6,500 people, that handles in-house IT systems and services.

Three years ago, it also started an initiative called Verizon Labs to develop platforms and applications - on top of its networks - in areas like Internet-of-Things (IoT), internet services, big data and analytics.

"When we started it, we thought of India as a key part of our strategy. We always felt India had the best talent anywhere in the world," Guru Pai, chief product officer of Verizon, told TOI on a visit to Bengaluru earlier this month. The India facility came up in 2013, the same year as the US ones. Today it has 200 engineers and computer science experts, out of the 2,000 that Verizon Labs has globally.

"We hired people who have solved big internet and computer science problems related to scale and reliability," said Pai, who grew up in Mumbai and then went to the US for higher studies.

He went on to do entrepreneurial ventures and worked at Lucent, AT&T Bell Laboratories and Motorola.

About half of the engineering strength in India is focused on internet services - building new applications that improve the Internet experience for consumers, including faster video downloads, ensuring less external noise in channels, and better billing systems. The others are involved in big data and analytics work, and in IoT applications, including telematics for automobiles.

"As networks go beyond phones and tablets to connect all kinds of other things, the systems have to change," Pai said, emphasizing the big focus the company now has on IoT.